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Imagine hearing someone's loved one dying to drug use and asking them, "But isn't this a false correlation?". What a deeply and unsettlingly cold question that
by chaps 2y ago
Imagine hearing someone's loved one dying to drug use and asking them, "But isn't this a false correlation?". What a deeply and unsettlingly cold question that lacks any potential for empathy.
- HelloMcFly 2y agoOkay, but the person wasn't asking this of the family of a dying loved one, they were asking it in this space where ideas are discussed and examined. Yes, it would be disturbingly unempathetic to ask that question in such a circumstance, but asking it in this circumstance is neither cold, inappropriate, or a demonstration that the asker lacks empathy.
- beedeebeedee 2y ago> "But isn't this a false correlation?". What a deeply and unsettlingly cold question that lacks any potential for empathy. That's an absurd mental picture you've imagined. Using that to undermine the discussion of the reality that people use drugs to temporarily escape from desperate conditions is unsettling and lacks empathy and judgment.
- chaps 2y agoYou've deeply misunderstood my comment.
- beedeebeedee 2y agoYou've deeply misunderstood your own comment
- knome 2y agoI disagree entirely, and I have personally witnessed people lose themselves to drug use. Anyone with a relative dying of addiction has no doubt been long exhausted in watching them circle the pit of their addiction. They are going to be under no illusions regarding the chances there were to escape it, and the choices made to remain there. Asking if they were escaping from a miserable reality vs chasing a high isn't offensive. It's just dealing with the reality of the situation as it is. The only person I see being offended is someone in denial, blaming the drugs alone rather than allowing any blame to the person using them, trying to imagine them an innocent victim without agency in the matter. The question is a good one. It actually looks for what caused everything to go wrong, rather than just being pointlessly offended on behalf of the imagined umbrage you think others might feel.
- chaps 2y agoI disagree with your characterization of my comment and I think you greatly missed the point I was making. The OP presented a false dichotomy as if these things aren't woven in with each other in a large feedback loop. You comment falsely assumes that I don't have familiarity or loss stemming from addiction.
- knome 2y agoYou've had multiple people "misunderstand" your comment. I suggest reconsidering how you express whatever it is you are trying to say, as I and the others are responding to what you managed to actually communicate, whether that message was your intended one or no.
- chaps 2y agoIt has been put into consideration. But now that we've made it clear that there have been ~ misunderstandings ~, can you try to see where I'm coming from now? :)
- knome 2y agoNo, I don't know what you intended to say there if not what I initially read it as. It seems a straightforward reading to me.
- chaps 2y agoMy point was to suggest to OP that their dichotomous reductionism goes way, way overboard to the point of unproductive callousness. People with addictions aren't just data points. Saying this as a data journalist who focuses on policing and jails.
- tomrod 2y agoThat you used a forced analogy (even if experiential) and ethos in a policy discussion? Sure, I can see that. I can even see blaming drugs for mental health issues and addiction despite the causality really being screwy if you try to force it that way. It's okay to be wrong, even when emotional, so long as we learn from it.